“Ahhhhhhhh!!” I shrieked, “Not again!” as my pile of dirty clothes lay motionless in a washer in my neighborhood Laundromat, despite hearing the clinking sound of my last quarters being swallowed in the maddening machine. “This is the third time this month!” “What’s the matter?” asked the woman next to me, as the soapy fresh smell of her clothes wafted from her suds-filled washer. I stared enviously for a moment before explaining my predicament.

Since moving to the Upper East Side, I had chosen this laundry for two simple reasons:

1) It is at my disposal 24 hours a day.

2) With more than 50 machines, I’m pretty much assured not having to wait.

But besides that, everything is up to blind luck.

“Tell me about it,” the woman said knowingly. “I used to have the same problem. I can’t even count how many quarters I’ve lost in these machines. And the owner never even puts up a sign.” Then she started chuckling.I started to wonder if my neighbor was laughing at me, but before I had time to allow the pangs of indignation to fully awaken in my reddening cheeks, she had whisked her iPhone from her pocket.

“I haven’t had that problem since using Foursquare,” she whispered, as if confiding a secret between sisters. “This app is amazing. I can even get tips on which washers are broken!”

Late 2009, I was taking a class called “Business of Media,” taught by Professor Aaron Cohen, and it was the first time I heard about Foursquare . Aaron invited Dennis Crowley, one of the founders of Foursqaure, as a guest speaker for a lecture. At that time, I did not really pay attention on this application, and I guess

it was because I did not have a smart phone or I was too much focusing on other popular SNS like Twitter or Facebook.